A precious friend sent these words to me recently.

It was a beautiful day at “C” when her text message arrived. The “C” was calm and gentle. There were no visible clouds on the horizon. A soft breeze blew – enough to remind us that we were drifting a bit at “C”, but not enough to create more than soft ripples in our life pool. It was smooth sailing, so-to-speak. And so I had – and took - the time to read, reread, absorb and thank her for these words, humbled that they had brought me to her mind.

But the “C” is fickle. And vast. And powerful. A squall can arise without warning, knocking one’s nascent “C” legs out from under. And a few days later, it did just that.

Last Friday morning started out much like any other of late. Except that we had all slept soundly, the recently resurrected baby monitor uncharacteristically quiet overnight.

This should have been our first clue: storm clouds were gathering at “C”.

Callen awoke just after dawn. We heard the distinctive sound of his slightly uneven footsteps - from his bedroom, to the bathroom, down the stairs, and into the den. We heard the soft rustle of pillows and blankets being adjusted to accommodate his comfort. We heard the TV turn on. What we didn’t hear was his voice. He didn’t call for us, or to us.

This brought us quickly to his side – and what we saw jarred us into action.

Our hearts sank: overnight Callen had seemingly been drained of color, save the scattered new bruises on his little legs.

And a bloody spot on his lower lip.

And an angry looking fissure in his left nostril.

He lay completely still in between bouts of intense nausea. His pulse was elevated, his breathing uneven. When he finally did open his mouth it was to dry heave and shriek in pain.

Within moments the car was readied for his transport, the clinic was notified of his change in status and made aware of our impending arrival. I drove quickly but cautiously so as to avoid any unwelcomed attention: Callen could not tolerate being upright in a car seat and thus was splayed across the back seat surrounded by blankets, pillows and buckets. He kept his eyes closed and uttered no sound for the entire 20-minute drive. I kept one hand on his radial pulse just to be sure…

Upon arrival we were ushered to a private exam room where I was interviewed and two doctors summarily examined Callen before our nurse even had time to enter the room. His vitals were then checked, his port accessed, labs drawn, and an IV fluid bolus started.

His oncologist returned with the lab results. As expected, all blood count parameters were critically low. He was profoundly anemic with a hemoglobin of 6, thrombocytopenic with platelets of 30, and neutropenic with an ANC of 200. The chemotherapy was indiscriminately destroying everything in its path. Callen was on empty. And for the first time since those agonizing days in March, he looked every bit the part of someone fighting “the big C”.

The sight of my listless little boy was more than I could bear. And in that moment, despite my best efforts to hold back the floodgates, the dam burst. I could do nothing but bow my head, and weep openly and unabashedly for my precious son, and for every son, daughter, father, mother, sister, brother, friend being ravaged by the disease or by its oft equally cruel cure.

I felt a gentle pat pat pat on my head. It was my sweet Callen, eyes staring into space, arms outstretched toward me – one found my head, the other my hand. I took the little hand he offered, and the larger one proffered by his doctor. We held onto each other tightly. Moored together, we adjusted our sails, and weathered that day’s storm - unwilling that any one of us be lost at “C”.